March, 2016: Readings and Discussions

February was a pathetic month in terms of reading for me and I vow to do better in March.

Starting off with Tom Piazza's short story collection BLUES AND TROUBLE, which grows more impressive with each selection.

Finished The Maul and the Pear Tree which was interesting but it led me on to On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.

Just closed the book on ROSA, a Jonathan Rabb mystery set in post-World War I Berlin, in the aftermath of the revolution. A serial killer is claiming victims and is "Red Rosa" Luxemburg one of them?

An enjoyable, thoroughly researched page-turner. Fans of Philip Kerr's "Bernie Gunther" series might like this one.

Just finished Graham Joyce's The Facts of Life, which is best described as English magical realism. It has made quite an impact on me for a number of reasons. Review here: http://www.librarything.com/work/49220/reviews

Currently reading In Ballast to the White Sea, which would have been Malcolm Lowry's second novel but it was initially rejected. He continued to work on it, but the ms was destroyed in a fire before he was happy with it. It turned out he'd left an earlier draft with his mother-in-law, and this turned up in the 1970s, was then edited by his ex-wife in the 1990s, but has only now seen the light of day in this annotated edition. It's very similar to Ultramarine, but also clearly an early work - and likely would have been considerably better had the latest version of it not been lost. Still, Lowry can still write rings around most authors.

Letters of Pliny is interesting but I can only take this guy in small doses. Since I started it I finished Van Gogh's Letters of a Post-Impressionist and am about to finish Steinbeck's Travels with Charley.

Reading Van Gogh's and Pliny's letters at the same time was amusing. They kind of magnified each others' personalities, the good and the bad. Pliny being intensely social and self satisfied. Van Gogh being kind of a mystic and full of doubt. You really don't learn anything about Van Gogh's environment from his letters. Pliny, so convinced of his own importance and yet so dependent on other people.

The most enjoyable thing about Travels with Charley is Steinbeck's voice. Interesting to see the early 60's US seen by a man that lived through the Depression. The book also feels really analog.

I am reading something that is pretty off-beat for me - a 1937 treatise called The Folklore of Capitalism.

Cause for celebration, new Jim Harrison out this month:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802124569/ref=nosim/themill0b-20

...and an older article, from 2015, on the man hisself:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/25/the-rodney-dangerfield-of-liter...

New Jim Harrison last month (?), too: Dead Man's Float from Copper Canyon Press is sitting on my desk.

I'm reading Logic, Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth with a Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life, as Well as in the Sciences which was recommended to me by a friend and has been sitting on my shelf for several years now. Since I'm reading it a bit at a time, I'm also reading The Red and the Black and Twelve Bar Blues.

Currently reading the 1831 version of Frankenstein. Apparently Victor created his monster as an undergrad, after two years in college. Also, the first meeting with his advisor did not go well. Who knew?

I finished Twelve Bar Blues and gave it four stars. I was impressed by how well Neates writes, but I didn't love it enough for five stars.

I never would've guessed that the original Frankenstein was a romantic philosopher monster. The amusing thing is that the volunteer reader at Librivox read the monster's parts in a voice that was somewhat close to Krusty the Clown.

>13 mejix: Interesting. I have yet to read Frankenstein, but it means the movie Young Frankenstein make a lot more sense. I saw that movie when I was a teen, and so now I may just read the novel. What I didn't want was to read the novel and find he was just a monster. Given who the author's parents were (although her mother died in childbirth with her) it makes some sense, though. Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft.

Young Frankenstein has more to do with earlier film adaptations of Frankenstein than with the book. You'll be surprised at how different the film versions are from the original novel. Very early in the book for example we find the monster running across the north pole being followed by Viktor Frankenstein!

I remember loving Young Frankenstein. "Oh sweet mystery of life at last I found you!"

I just re-read AJ somerset's book on guns. A.J., I also finally wrote a review and cross posted to Amazon to help neutralize the gun nuts. Hope things are going well with you!

Thanks, Anna!

I liked the ending of Young Frankenstein the best.

I'm enjoying reading The Nightingale, and it's okay, but I just started listening to the audiobook of All the Light We Cannot See and so far LOVE the way Anthony Doerr writes. So far I also like the reader, but he hasn't done much dialogue yet, and that's usually the clincher for me.

Currently reading Beside the Ocean of Time but not seeing why it was shortlisted for the Booker...

Reading a world history text called Millennium: A History of the Last 1000 Years that's proving true to its introduction's promise of removing typical signposts and milestones in favour of dusting off the more rarely viewed artifacts. Lots of time spent here on China, Islam, Africa and other rarely mentioned corners of the world.

My reading this month (summarized):

THE EXECUTION (Hugo Wilcken)
YOUNG ORSON (Patrick McGilligan)
VIOLENT POLITICS (William Polk)
DISASTER CAPITALISM (Antony Loewenstein)
EARTH ABIDES (George R. Stewart)
WITHOUT (Donald Hall)
FORTUNE SMILES (Adam Johnson)
MOUNT ANALOGUE (Rene Daumal)
BUTCHER'S CROSSING (John Williams)
THE OPERATORS (Michael Hastings)
ROSA LUXEMBURG (Harry Harmer)

The particular commend the Wilcken novel, Donald Hall's poetry and Adam Johnson's brilliant collection of stories.